‘Won’t you now! Then I’ll make you suffer. Give you pain such as you’ve never had before!’
‘I’ve suffered pain before and I’ve endured. I can do that again if need be!’
‘Can you, old man? Don’t you remember how in recent months your knees were starting to play up? So much so that you were beginning to develop a bit of a limp. It was the result of too many years walking the County lines in the cold and damp. The sockets were starting to rot away. Now it’s getting worse. Can’t you feel it?’
‘I’m a spirit! I have no body. I have no knees!’ Jacob Stone cried. ‘I can feel nothing! Nothing at all!’
Lizzie began to chant again, and now the expression on his face began to change. The lines on his forehead deepened and his face began to contort, showing that, despite his brave words, he was now in extreme pain.
‘Not sure now, are you?’ Lizzie gloated, her voice ringing with triumph. ‘Your bones are grinding together inside their sockets. Your knees are starting to crumble. It’s agony. You can’t bear the agony a moment longer!’
Jacob Stone cried out and his face set in a grimace, but still he said nothing. Lizzie chanted again for a few moments, though I could tell that she was shaken by the old man’s resistance. Suddenly, in a paroxysm of fury, she pointed at his spirit and stamped her left foot three times.
‘I’m pushing a red-hot needle into your right eye!’ she cried. ‘Can you feel it twisting and piercing as it goes in deeper, inch by inch. Right into your brain it’s going! Answer my question and I’ll stop the pain. Then you can go on your way!’
The spook’s spirit cried out in agony, and I could see a trickle of blood flowing from his eye, down his right cheek, to drip off his chin. But still he did not tell Lizzie what she wanted to know.
It was a terrible thing to see – for him to be a spirit but still feel pain. I felt sorry for the dead spook and wanted to walk away to avoid seeing even worse. But I daren’t move: it would interrupt the ritual and Lizzie would be so angry with me that an encounter with sprogs would be the very least of my worries.
Her face was filled with intense concentration, but I could tell, by the way her mouth was twitching and her hands clenched and unclenched, that she’d failed to break the spook. A witch can only use such spells in short bursts before becoming weary. Lizzie simply couldn’t continue to give him such pain for more than ten or twenty seconds at a time. After that she would have to stop.
Releasing her breath angrily, Lizzie did just that. Then she began to pace back and forth in front of the cauldron with her eyes closed, as if deep in thought.
Jacob Stone’s face was peaceful now. The pain had left him and he was staring down at the witch, looking calm and dignified.
Suddenly Lizzie halted and a crafty expression settled upon her face. ‘You’re tough, old man!’ she said. ‘You can stand pain, all right, I’ll give you that. But what happens if I hurt someone else? Have you any family?’
‘I never married,’ he said. ‘A spook can’t be distracted by a woman. He dedicates his life to his trade – to his vocation. The people of the County are his family!’
‘But you are the seventh son of a seventh son, so you’ll have brothers, and maybe sisters too! And no doubt they’ll have children. What if I bring one of your nephews or nieces here and hurt them? No doubt you’d tell me what I want to know to save that child pain!’
The spirit smiled. ‘You’ve failed again, witch,’ he told her. ‘I was the seventh and youngest, but our house caught fire when I was still a child. My whole family died. My father got me to safety and then died of his burns. I have no family left for you to torment.’
‘Does it have to be family, old man?’ Lizzie sneered. ‘Any child will do. To save a child from torment you’ll tell me exactly what I need to know.’
The spirit didn’t answer, though I could tell by the worried expression on his face that she was right. Lizzie gave a wild, wicked laugh and muttered a word under her breath. Immediately the face vanished, and the cloud above the cauldron dispersed into the night air.
‘He’s trapped until I release him,’ Lizzie told me. ‘We need to grab ourselves a child tomorrow – maybe more than one – and use it to break his spirit. Now go and make me some supper, and be quick about it!’
I went inside and did as Lizzie had ordered, just pleased to get away from her. I didn’t like the way things were developing. I’d known Lizzie murdered children to get their bones, but to hear her say it out loud made me feel sick to my stomach. Once she’d used the little ones to get what she needed from the spook, they’d be as good as dead.
After supper Lizzie made me clear away the plates and then give the table a really good scrub. Once it was dry she inspected it closely, her nose just inches from its surface.
‘You’ve done a good job, girl,’ she said at last. ‘Can’t be too careful. One speck of dirt could spoil everything.’
That said, she went and brought the leather egg down from its hiding place in her room and positioned it right in the centre of the table. Next she sat on a stool, leaned her elbows on the table and stared at the strange object for a long time. She didn’t move and I couldn’t even hear her breathing, but a couple of times she gave a sniff. Doing her best to learn all about it, she was.
I had a bad feeling about that egg. It was dangerous, I was sure. Didn’t even want to be in the same room.
‘What’s inside it – that’s what we need to know,’ muttered Lizzie, more to herself than me. ‘But it don’t feel right tonight . . .’ She gave a little shiver. ‘There are good times and bad times for delving into mysteries like this one, and sometimes things shouldn’t be forced. Cutting it open might well ruin it. But there are other ways . . . I’ll think for a while and see what I can come up with.’
It seemed to me that it was always going to be a bad time to be meddling with that leather egg. But Lizzie would have her way. What could I do?
Putting an end to her muttering, Lizzie clutched the leather egg to her bosom and took it back up to its hiding place.
I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. I was curious about what was inside the egg too, but a sense of danger radiated from it. It was best left alone – I knew that for sure.